


Who You'd Be Today

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-28
Updated: 2006-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 13:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14791164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Josh's thoughts about his sister throughout his life.





	Who You'd Be Today

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. They belong to Aaron Sorkin. The song “Who You’d be Today” belongs to Kenney Chesny.  
Who You’d be Today  
He is ten when she dies. She is thirteen. He doesn’t remember very much of that night. When he tries to, all he can come up with is the faint smell of smoke and her voice yelling at him to get out of the house.  
During the wake, one of his father’s friends comes up to sit next to him on the couch. He barely knows this man who is much shorter than his father and has a little red-haired toddler named Mallory who used to follow his sister around at barbeques.  
The man tells him that Joanie would always be watching over him. That especially on clear days like this one, she can see him and make sure he is alright. The man reminds him that he’ll get to see her again someday, and that he should make sure he’s got good stories to tell her and that he’s become a good man. Then this friend of his father’s squeezes his shoulder and walks away. He never told his father’s friend that those words became both a comfort and a source of pain throughout his childhood and even into adulthood.  
The wake is crowded and he sneaks away to sit on the back porch swing and look up at the clear blue sky. The sun is shining brightly and he feels the hot tears welling up behind his eyes. He doesn’t think it is fair Joanie can see him when he’ll never get to see her again.  
Sunny days seem to hurt the most.  
I wear the pain like a heavy coat.  
I feel you everywhere I go.  
At school no one talks about it. It is like it never happened. Like she never existed. But he notices the teachers looking at him with pity in their eyes and it makes him want to hit things. On sunny days he sits on the top of the jungle gym and stares at the sky, hoping that she can see him and that maybe he can catch a glimpse of her watching him  
Years pass and it becomes easier. He thinks of her less but she is never far from his mind. Some days he passes by her room and peers inside. He sits on her bed and turns on “Ave Maria.” If he closes his eyes he can imagine her standing next to the desk, waving her arms as he watches enthralled from his place on the floor. He can see her close her eyes and he feels the music wash over him.  
I see your smile, I see your face,  
I hear you laughing' in the rain.  
I still can't believe you're gone.  
When he graduates from college everyone makes a big deal about it. He is standing in his parent’s living room at the party they threw for him. Their Ivy League son. Top of his class. Now going off to law school. He smiles at all of his parent’s friends. Returns the hug from the man who’d sat next to him all those years ago. But just nods blankly when the man tells him that someday he’ll be helping to run the country.  
The party drags on and he finds himself sitting sideways on the piano bench. Running his hands over the keys the way he’d seen her do so many times when he was a kid. She should have had a party like this one. She was so talented. He can remember his parents gushing over her accomplishments the way they are now gushing over his. She should have had that too.  
He wonders if she would have been a famous musician by now. Or maybe conducting at the Kennedy center like she always wanted too. Or maybe she’d be teaching high school band. He wonders if she would have been there today. Standing next to him with a proud smile the way she had the first time he’d played “Fur Elise” on the piano without any mistakes.  
Piano stopped having meaning to him after she died. He used to play because she did, because he wanted to be just like her. But then she was gone, and there wasn’t any reason to anymore.  
It ain't fair: you died too young,   
Like the story that had just begun,   
But death tore the pages all away.  
When Leo comes to get him the first time he tells Josh it was what sons do for old friends of their fathers. He never tells the older man that he doesn’t think of him as a friend of his father’s. He sees him as the man who’d talked about heaven when it’s sunny and how he’d help run the country some day.   
Three hours after Bartlet’s inauguration he is setting up his office with Donna when she comes across a picture of a young girl and younger boy standing next to a grill, each with a hotdog in their hand grinning wildly. She admonishes him for never telling her he had a sister. He takes the picture from her hands and tells her that he had a sister but she’d died about a week after the picture was taken.   
He expects Donna to apologize quickly and say something stupid like she can only imagine what that must be like. But instead she takes the picture back from him and hangs it up on the wall next to the picture of his grandfather. Then she asks what his sister’s name was. When he replies she says that Joanie was a beautiful girl before going back to unpacking.  
Josh stares at the picture for another moment. A sadness he hasn’t felt in a while rushing over him. He reaches out and touches the protective glass, wishing more than anything that she’d have been there to see him stand ten feet from a man being sworn into presidential office. She would have liked that a lot. He looks at the picture of his father and feels a glimmer of relief that now they were together, watching over him and his mother.  
After the issue with the NSA card he doesn’t think about her for almost a year. The next time is when he is sitting on the ground up against a fence with a hole through his chest. He remembers thinking that maybe he was going to see her again.   
When he wakes up in the hospital the pain rips through him for days. Donna stays by his side but can do little to comfort him. He keeps flashing back to when he was seven and gotten the flu very badly. His mother had been out of town visiting grandmother and Joanie had taken over her role as Jewish mother extraordinaire. Bringing him chicken soup, holding a cool cloth to his forehead, and singing him to sleep through the fever induced nightmares.  
Donna tells him years later that he’d cried out his sister’s name in the hospital when the pain got really bad.  
God knows how I miss you,  
All the hell that I've been through,  
Just knowing' no-one could take your place.  
An' sometimes I wonder,  
Who'd you be today?  
The third time he stands ten feet from a man being sworn into office he isn’t standing alone. With Donna pressing into his side that day feels more complete than either of the two previous inaugurations. He rubs his hand over the ring on her left hand and smiles, remembering their wedding on the beach in Hawaii. Feeling calmer than he had in a long time. He thinks about his father, and how he and Leo must be having a good time up there. He thinks about Joanie, and how much she would have loved the Marine band.  
A year later Donna whispers to him during a staff meeting that he’s going to be a father. He cries out in delight and swings her around his office drawing odd looks from the rest of the staff until they too are let in on the secret. That night he stands alone in the kitchen during an impromptu celebration at their house, Donna comes up behind him and asks him what he’s thinking. He replies that he wishes Joanie could be there. He tells her how his sister used to say that she wanted to have two kids, a son and a daughter, and instructed him that she was to have at least two nephews or nieces to spoil rotten.  
Donna says nothing, just rubs the back of his neck supportively. She has never tried to understand the pain and guilt he feels over his sister’s death, but he knows that she can feel the pain as well. She just gets him. When she asks him if he wants to send everyone home he shakes his head and apologizes for bringing down the mood. He’s just always wondered if she’d have had her two kids by now. And if she’d have been bothering him for years about the nephews and nieces.

Would you see the world?   
Would you chase your dreams?  
Settle down with a family,  
I wonder what would you name your babies?  
When his son is born Donna looks at him through tired eyes and smiles as he kisses her forehead and then her lips. She tells him that the little one needs a name. They have a deal that she got to name the baby if it was a girl and he got to name it if it was a boy. They had talked about various possibilities but eventually declared that they trusted the other not to do anything too crazy.  
Later he stands in the hospital room as Sam, Lou, and Annabeth come in and fawn over the tiny baby in his arms. They ask what his name is and Josh smiles before introducing them to Joseph Noah Lyman. Lou and Annabeth ask why Joseph and before he can respond Sam whispers that it was the closest male version to her name. He nods and lets Sam explain the significance to the two women, turning his attention back to his wife and son.  
Outside the hospital windows he can see that the sky is blue and he wonders if maybe he wasn’t so wrong as a kid, sitting on top of the jungle gym whispering to his sister as if the clearness of the sky meant she could hear him. Because today he swears that if he squints he can see up to heaven.  
Some days the sky's so blue,  
I feel like I can talk to you,  
An' I know it might sound crazy.  
Joey is almost six the first time Josh takes him to the cemetery in Connecticut. The little boy has heard the story of his namesake, as well as stories of his grandfather. But today as he stands before their headstones and realizes he can count the number of years between his aunt’s birth and death on his own two hands plus one of his fathers, it hits him how young she was. Though thirteen seems like a lifetime away from five and three quarters, he can understand how little it is.  
He feels the sadness radiating off his father and slips his hand into the other man’s much larger one. He asks if Josh still misses Joanie. Josh looks down at his son tells him that there have been a lot of times in his life he’s wished his big sister would have been around. Just like there will be times little Rachel will be glad Joey is around to be her big brother. Josh tells him that he misses the person she was going to be. When Joey looks up at him with confusion, Josh smiles and tells his son he hopes he never has to understand what that means. Then they both put rocks on Joanie and Noah’s graves before walking hand in hand back to the car.  
It ain't fair: you died too young,  
Like the story that had just begun,  
But death tore the pages all away.  
God knows how I miss you,  
All the hell that I've been through,  
Just knowing' no-one could take your place.  
An' sometimes I wonder,  
Who you'd be today?  
He was ten when his sister died. She was thirteen. Some days it hurt to wake up in the morning. Some days he came running into the house excited to tell her something before he remembered that she was gone. That for as long as he lives he’d never see her again.  
A friend of his father’s told him that someday he’d see her again, and that he should have good stories and become a good man. Told him that on sunny days she is watching over him.  
When his granddaughter is born they name her Joanie. And he looks over at his son with tears in his eyes. Donna puts her hand on his arm and he kisses her head before leaning back onto his cane and looking out the window at the sunny day.  
Sunny days seem to hurt the most.  
I wear the pain like a heavy coat.  
The only thing that gives me hope,   
Is I know I'll see you again some day.

Some day, some day, some day.


End file.
